3 Steps To Taking Advantage of Online Sales

Online shoppers enjoy several benefits over going to brick and mortar stores. They shop from the comfort of their own home, can price compare with other retailers without getting out of their chair, and can also take advantage of online only sales.

It might take a little extra effort for customers to take full advantage of those online sales, however. Such was the case with a recent purchase my wife made online from a women’s clothing retailer. We received an email stating the retailer was offering an online only sale for the next few days of $50 off a $100 purchase. 50% off is a great sale, so after a quick budget discussion she instantly started looking through the retailer’s website picking out some much needed new clothes.

When it came time to calculate the final bill, however, my wife was a little surprised. Her total before applying the discount was about $211. She typed in the online discount code as instructed by the email and found that $50 was deducted from her total.

â€œI assumed it was $50 for each $100,â€ said my wife expecting the total discount to be $100.

I knew exactly what to do, and asked my wife if I could take control of the computer. I removed items from her shopping list so the total was just over $100. I then hit the â€œcheckoutâ€ button, applied the code and had $50 deducted from the total. The total for the order was $53. I selected the option for free shipping to store and entered my payment information. I then started a new order and selected the items I had removed from my wife’s original order. The total for the new order was $108. I followed the method of entering the discount code and to have the products shipped to our local store for free.

My wife complimented me on my idea as we compared to cost of the two methods:

Single order:

$211 – $50 discount = $161

Total Cost : $161

Two Orders:

$103 – $50 discount = $53

$108 – $50 discount = $58

Total cost: $111

We saved an additional $50 by splitting my wife’s order into two separate orders.

Let’s review how I got the most for my money:

Read Fine Print : Know the full detail of the discount. In this case, it was $50 off if the order total exceeds $100. The maximum discount per order is $50.

Split The Order : Since my wife’s order exceeded $200, we were able to split the order into two orders that both exceeded the discount threshold.

Take Advantage of Ship To Store : It would have costed a flat rate of $8 to have an order shipped to our home. By splitting the order in two, the shipping rate would have doubled to $16. By using the free ship to store option, I paid $0.

Have you ever put in a little extra effort to take full advantage of an online sale? How much more did you save?